Anti austerity Syriza party supporters celebrate as leader Alexis Tsipras speaks folllowing victory in the election in Athens on January 25, 2015. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said the nation "had spoken" in handing victory to the anti-austerity Syriza party, and said he hoped the new government would not endanger the country's EU and euro membership. "I hand over a country that is part of the EU and the euro. For the good of this country, I hope the next government will maintain what has been achieved," Samaras said in a brief address to reporters.ARIS MESSINIS/AFP / Getty Images
North American stocks fluctuated in trading Monday as gains in energy companies offset a drop in technology shares as investors considered the possible fallout from the Greek election.
Traders also were cautious ahead of a busy week for economic data and earnings news, including the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest word on interest rates.
The S&P/TSX composite index declined 5.56 points to 14,773.79. The Canadian dollar slipped 0.05 of a cent to 80.44 cents US.
U.S. indexes were mainly lower with the Dow Jones industrials down 4.05 points to 17,668.55, the Nasdaq gained 3.74 points to 4,761.62 and the S&P 500 index was 1.82 point higher to 2,053.64.
In New York, officials told residents to stay at home as a blizzard forecasters call "life-threatening" may dump as much as two feet of snow from New York to Boston. The New York Stock Exchange plans to operate on a normal schedule on Monday, said spokesman Eric Ryan in an e-mail. It's "business as usual for now," he wrote.
"We're sort of at an inflection point in the market," Bill Schultz, who oversees $1.2 billion as chief investment officer at McQueen, Ball & Associates in Bethlehem, Pa., said in a phone interview. "It needs more to get it moving to higher levels. It's just trying to digest all of this information and try to make heads or tails of it. You saw the Greek election although that was not a big surprise."
The S&P 500 rallied 1.6 per cent last week after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said it plans to buy up to 1.14 trillion euros ($1.28 trillion) of private and public securities.
Greek equities fell on Monday after Syriza, whose leader has pledged to renegotiate the nation's international bailout, won 149 out of a possible 300 seats in Parliament. Prime Minister-elect Alexis Tsipras' mandate is now to confront the nation's program of austerity, imposed in return for pledges of 240 billion euros in aid since May 2010. His pledges include a writedown of Greek debt while persuading European creditors to keep aid flowing.
The Greek elections "infused a little bit more risk into the market," Michael James, a Los Angeles-based managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities Inc., said in a phone interview. "More people are focusing on a pretty busy earnings calendar this week and the Fed commentary on Wednesday. Those are going to be the much bigger focus for traders than the situation in Greece."
Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve is holding its scheduled interest rate meeting on Wednesday. The Fed has been widely expected to start moving rates away from near zero around the middle of this year and traders will be looking for any sign that the central bank could move earlier.
John Stephenson, president and CEO of Stephenson & Co. said he thinks the Fed will go later than generally thought.
"Because of all this uncertainty out there, they will be on hold longer than most people think — consensus is they move in June but I don't think they move that soon, they'll move later."
Other major data points this week include the latest economic growth figures for Canada and the United States.
Economists expect that Canadian gross domestic product grew a slight 0.1 per cent during November.
The collapse in oil prices has led TD to downgrade its economic forecast for the Canadian econom, which the bank now expects to grow by two per cent this year, compared with its December estimate of 2.3 per cent.
TD also said Monday that it expects oil will average US$47 this year — about only slightly above recent futures prices.
Oil prices have fallen more than 40 per cent since the end of November when Saudi Arabia rejected calls to cut production in order to support prices.
In the U.S., fourth quarter GDP is expected to come in at an annualized rate of 3.1 per cent, down from a five per cent pace in the third quarter.
On the TSX, lift came from the industrials sector, up one per cent with Canadian National Railway up 43 cents to $84.91 ahead of earnings coming out Tuesday.
The energy sector was flat while the March crude contract in New York was down 15 cents at US$45.44 a barrel.
The gold sector was down 0.75 per cent, while February bullion faded $13.50 to US$1,279.10 an ounce. However, the sector has surged 36 per cent this month while gold prices have steadily advanced.
The base metals sector dropped 0.45 per cent while March copper was up three cents to US$2.53 a pound.
Investors are also watching earnings reports. Microsoft Corp. is among those releasing quarterly results today. Of the S&P 500 companies that have reported so far, 77 per cent have exceeded earnings projections after analysts reduced their estimates. Profit at S&P 500 companies climbed 1.1 per cent in the last three months of 2014, analysts predict, down from an October estimate of 8.1 per cent.
With files from The Canadian Press